The Avocado Slicing Trick You Absolutely, Immediately Need To Know

If you like to start your day with a nutritious breakfast, you're probably already in the know on how to get avocados to ripen faster. After all, you need a soft green fruit to make smashed avocado on multigrain toast before you head out for another long day at work. Not only are avocados a tasty accompaniment to your morning scrambled eggs and coffee, but they're quite nutritious as well. According to the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, avocados contain a substantial amount of heart-healthy fats, fiber, and many essential vitamins such as magnesium, folate, and vitamins C and E. While no one is trying to argue the health benefits of avocados, doesn't it sometimes feel like this creamy dark-skinned fruit became exceedingly popular overnight?

Avocados started cropping up here and there in everyday American supermarkets in the early 2000s when restrictions against certain imports began to lift. Mexico is the number one producer of the bright green superfood and since avocados were slowly able to be imported, U.S. grocers stopped relying solely on the fruits in California and their use became quite commonplace over time. Whether you're whipping up a hearty salad, or adding some fresh avocado slices to your next turkey sandwich, there is one way you might want to try slicing your next batch of creamy bumpy-skinned fruits.

Before you prepare your next serving of avocado toast, you may want to follow a simple method for slicing. There are a number of tasty benefits to the softness of a ripe avocado and many foodies enjoy adding a creamy element to their favorite morning smoothie or weeknight pasta dish, but having the flesh all over your hands is less than ideal. Do you ever wish you had a streamlined method for cutting avocados?

You may be on your way to experiencing a newfound appreciation for avocado skin since it's the perfect vessel to slice it up without creating a huge mess or dirtying another plate or cutting board. To cut the fruit (make sure it's ripe) the easy way, simply slice the avocado in half along the large inner pit. Then remove the pit by inserting the edge of your knife and twisting it out. While holding half of an avocado in your hand like a cup, start making slices directly in the skin. Once you've sliced your fruit all the way through, just scoop those mess-free slices out with a spoon when you're ready to use and enjoy. Apart from this handy avocado-slicing trick, there are other hacks you may want to keep up your sleeve if you're a regular avocado eater. 

Since avocados have a neutral taste and pose a number of health benefits, you may want to keep a few extras in your kitchen, but knowing how to properly store and maintain these lush green fruits is essential. Turns out there are many uses for avocado besides fresh guacamole so you may want to keep a few additional avocado-slicing methods handy the next time you fix a new exciting dish or need a fancy way of presenting your food. You can easily fan out your avocado slices by only slicing a portion of the half or shape them into a rose by slicing the fruit thinly and rolling the slices on your cutting board as you go.

If fancy slicing is the least of your concerns, you may be instead, looking for a tried and true way to store avocados since once they're sliced, they tend to brown fast. Once these creamy fruits are exposed to outside air, certain enzymes in avocado flesh start to transform and cause a reaction on the surface of the skin. In order to prevent this reaction, you can store your exposed avocado in an airtight container or add a small amount of citrus juice to the skin's surface. One 2020 study surprisingly found onion to slow down the oxidation process as well. Hopefully, you now feel prepared to store these nutritionally-dense fruits and feel empowered with more than one easy slicing technique.